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	<title>Shlrm.org Blag &#187; liberty</title>
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		<title>Health Care Reform Survey From Congressman Ciro Rodriguez</title>
		<link>http://shlrm.org/wordpress/2009/09/08/health-care-reform-survey-from-congressman-ciro-rodriguez/</link>
		<comments>http://shlrm.org/wordpress/2009/09/08/health-care-reform-survey-from-congressman-ciro-rodriguez/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:45:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>David Kowis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://shlrm.org/wordpress/?p=282</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I received a survey in the e-mails today. It was one regarding the healthcare stuff. However, many of the questions were loaded, I&#8217;m going to paste the quiz along with my answers in here for your reading enjoyment. The questions are numbered and my answers are in bold, where italicized, it was an answer not [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I received a survey in the e-mails today. It was one regarding the healthcare stuff. However, many of the questions were loaded, I&#8217;m going to paste the quiz along with my answers in here for your reading enjoyment. The questions are numbered and my answers are in bold, where italicized, it was an answer not in the A,B,C,D of the quiz. I responded via email back to the reply-to of this address rather than sheep-ly fill out the answers inside the little box they gave me.<span id="more-282"></span></p>
<p>*1. Are you satisfied with your health insurance plan?*<br />
Yes, I am satisfied with my private insurance.<br />
Yes, I am satisfied with my combination of public and private coverage.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.<br />
I am not insured.<br />
I am covered by a public insurance plan (like Medicare or Medicaid).</p>
<p>* 2. Do you believe that our nation’s health insurance system needs<br />
reforming? *<br />
<strong>Yes.</strong><br />
No.<br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>*3. Have you read any of the healthcare reform legislation currently<br />
being considered in Congress?*<br />
<strong>Yes.</strong><br />
No.<br />
Some.</p>
<p>*4. What should be the most important goal in reforming our nation’s<br />
health system?*<br />
Making private insurance more affordable for Americans, including the 47<br />
million uninsured individuals.<br />
Making care more efficient by reducing waste and unnecessary treatments.<br />
Shoring up the finances of Medicare and Medicaid.<br />
Imposing caps on medical malpractice lawsuits.<br />
<strong>Other</strong><br />
<strong><em>Increasing the options available to people and letting the Individual person decide what is best for themselves.</em></strong></p>
<p>*5. If you believe that our nation’s health insurance system needs<br />
reforming, what do you believe is the best way to reduce the number of<br />
uninsured Americans and reduce long-term health care costs?*<br />
Creating a health insurance plan, administered by the federal<br />
government, to compete on a level playing field with private insurers.<br />
Creating nonprofit co-ops, operated by a non-governmental entity, to<br />
provide insurance to members and compete on a level playing field with<br />
private insurance companies.<br />
Creating a single government plan to cover every American.<br />
Expand eligibility for existing public programs like Medicare, Medicaid,<br />
and SCHIP.<br />
Undecided.<br />
No action necessary.<br />
<strong><em>None of the available answers are the proper solution. The solution is to allow the American People, individually, to choose whats best. To enable them to have many, many choices, so that the market may determine what the best course of action is. No one &#8220;quick fix&#8221; or easily explainable solution will work.</em></strong></p>
<p>*6. Do you support requiring all Americans to have health insurance? *<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>*7. Do you support prohibiting insurance companies from not offering<br />
insurance to people with preexisting conditions? *<br />
Yes, all people should have guaranteed access to health insurance.<br />
No, insurance companies should be able to limit coverage to people with<br />
preexisting conditions.<br />
Undecided.<br />
<strong><em>This is also a loaded question. Insurance companies should be allowed to operate their business freely. With a great deal of consumer choice, they will bend to do what the consumers want, else they&#8217;ll go out of business. If covering preexisting conditions is important enough, people will flock to insurance companies that will cover them. Forcing one way or the other will not work.</em></strong></p>
<p>*8. Do you support creating a public health insurance plan, administered<br />
by the federal government, that would compete on a level playing field<br />
with private insurers, as long as people could keep their current<br />
insurance if they are happy with it?*<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.<em>No. Its not in the specifically enumerated powers, therefore it cannot be done.</em></strong><br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>*9. If a government-run, public health insurance option is created, do<br />
you support making the public option widely available to all Americans,<br />
or do you support implementing a “trigger” so it is only available in<br />
areas where choice is limited because one or two private insurers<br />
maintain a monopoly.*<br />
Widely available.<br />
Trigger.<br />
Undecided.<br />
<strong><em>A better &#8220;Trigger&#8221; would be to allow the market to create more insurance companies in that area.</em></strong></p>
<p>*10. Instead of creating a public health insurance option to compete<br />
with private insurers, do you support creating a nonprofit co-op system<br />
(as described in question 5b) that would offer insurance for members and<br />
compete with private insurers?*<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>*11. Do you support requiring employers with a payroll over $250,000 to<br />
contribute to their employees’ health benefits?*<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>*12. Do you support passing health care reform even if it will add to<br />
our nation’s federal deficit, or do you only support passing health<br />
reform if it is revenue neutral and does not add to the deficit?*<br />
Yes, implement health reform even if it adds to the deficit.<br />
No, only implement health reform if it is revenue neutral and does not<br />
add to the deficit.<br />
Undecided.<br />
I do not support any health care reform, regardless of the cost.<br />
<strong><em>This implies that the Federal Government must be involved in healthcare reform. The Federal Government is the problem that is preventing real reform from happening. No one group of people can know what system will work best for all individuals. The only way is to let the market decide by reducing regulation and enabling individual people to make the best choice for their own healthcare.</em></strong></p>
<p>*13. Roughly 164 million of Americans receive their health insurance<br />
from their employers. Do you support taxing employer provided benefits<br />
to help finance healthcare reform?*<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.<br />
<em>This also assumes that the Federal Government must be involved to solve the problem.</em></p>
<p>*14. Do you support imposing a surcharge on families making over $1<br />
million, rather than taxing employer provided benefits, to help pay for<br />
healthcare reform?*<br />
Yes.<br />
<strong>No.</strong><br />
Undecided.</p>
<p>And there you have it.</p>
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		<title>Government Imposed Artificial Limits on Compensation are a Bad Idea</title>
		<link>http://shlrm.org/wordpress/2009/05/13/government-imposed-artificial-limits-on-compensation-are-a-bad-idea/</link>
		<comments>http://shlrm.org/wordpress/2009/05/13/government-imposed-artificial-limits-on-compensation-are-a-bad-idea/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 May 2009 15:43:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>David Kowis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[big government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://shlrm.org/wordpress/?p=230</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It seems the Obama Administration has come up with a great idea. Lets artificially set limits on the amount of compensation that financial workers can make. That&#8217;s going to give them a great deal of motivation to work hard and do a good job. This isn&#8217;t going to fix anything at all. In fact, it&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It seems the Obama Administration has come up with <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124215896684211987.html">a great idea</a>. Lets artificially set limits on the amount of compensation that financial workers can make. That&#8217;s going to give them a great deal of motivation to work hard and do a good job. This isn&#8217;t going to fix anything at all. In fact, it&#8217;s more likely to produce corrupt individuals.</p>
<p>A truly free market will appropriately set salaries for people. The shareholders and the board of directors will pay the people what they belive they&#8217;re worth. The people working for these companies will believe they&#8217;re getting paid well for the work they do. Failures such as the one that has occured recently are a wake up call for the industry. They realize that they&#8217;ve been paying people too much, and agreeing to contract terms that result in CEOs leaving with a huge bonus regardless of failure, or success, of the company.  That will be remedied, but not by artificially setting limits on compensation. Artificially set limits will only drive people away from the industry, or encourage them to find &#8220;creative&#8221; ways to make enough money. Some of those &#8220;creative&#8221; ways may have questionable legality.</p>
<p>This is another example of the government meddling in things they shouldn&#8217;t touch at all. They should only deal with enforcing private contracts. They <strong>should</strong> be ensuring that the contract that the company and the CEO is held up. Even if that means the company hurts badly, potentially failing. It will serve as an example to not form contracts this way anymore. It will cause pain to the shareholders that have agreed to the terms of the contract.</p>
<p>It will force the appropriate people to be <em>responsible for their actions</em>. Something that is severly lacking in the United States of America these days&#8230;</p>
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